IRS Targeted Tea Party

Officials at the Internal Revenue Service ignored the tax-exempt applications of conservative groups for years at a time, bringing the growth of new Tea Party nonprofits to a standstill in the run-up to President Obama's re-election.

It's been two years since an inspector general's report revealed the IRS had targeted tea party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny – but the lack of action since then also illustrates "Congress's inability to exercise its constitutional oversight responsibilities," lawyer Cleta Mitchell charges. In a blistering op-ed commentary in the Wall Street Journal Thursday night, Mitchell, who represents many tea party and conservative groups, says it's time both the Obama administration and Congress do something to rectify the inaction.

The IRS is still blocking applications for nearly a dozen tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status, Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday — though he bristled at the organizations’ claims of poor treatment.Mr. Koskinen said he’s offered those groups a path forward if they would agree to limit their overtly political activity to a lower amount, but the groups have rejected that offer. Some of them have instead chosen to sue the agency to demand approval.

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The Liberty Township Tea Party (OH) was instructed by the IRS to answer 35 questions in its tax-exempt application. One was “Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas (a Cincinnati-area tea-party activist).” The tea party has had only phone conversations with him. The NSA was the only agency with access to that data. So the NSA must have used the info.

The lawyers for retiring Lois Lerner are negotiating with Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about possibly gaining immunity to testify again in the IRS investigative hearings.